


Let's Go Upstate

by RedBerrie



Series: The Hamil-ABO 'Verse [9]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alpha!TJeffs, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Family Fluff, Gen, Omega!Alexander
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 16:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15368667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBerrie/pseuds/RedBerrie
Summary: They were going to the museum! The big one in D.C.! Sure, they went last summer, but that was a whole year ago. She had been five then. Now, Ellie was six (and a half!), and they were going to the museum!Just like Ellie says: the Jefferson family goes to theSimth-Smithsonian. It's super cute. You may have to see a dentist afterward because of all the cavities, cute.





	Let's Go Upstate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmeraldEyedFairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldEyedFairy/gifts).



> This fic is part of my "[Hamil-ABO](https://archiveofourown.org/series/636134)" series. You **DO NOT** need to have read the rest of the fics in that series before reading this one -- just know that the kids belong to Thomas and Alex.
> 
> Just in case someone didn't read all the tags, this fic does take place in an A/B/O setting.
> 
> Because this takes place in an A/B/O setting, in which half the population are omegas -- and, therefore, functioning hermaphrodites -- words like "mother" and "father" don't have the same gendered qualities to them as they do in our world. The parent who gestates the baby is the mother, and the parent who impregnates the mother is the father, regardless of sex or gender. In this fic, **I will be referring to Alex, a male, as the mother.** However, his children call him a gender-neutral name.

 

They were going to the museum! The big one in D.C.!

Sure, they went last summer, but that was a whole year ago. She had been five then. Now, Ellie was six (and a half!), and they were going to the museum!

Of course, JJ and Georgie were coming, too. Her twin she didn’t mind as much, but Georgie just turned three, which was too young to know how to act right. He was always doing embarrassing things, like laughing at nothing or pressing his scent glands on accident. And it was up to Ellie, the other Alpha kid, to remind him of his manners.

Of course, that’s not how the grownups saw it. “Be nice to your younger brother,” Lala told the older twins sternly. (Lala was what they called their Mama.)

“Yes, Lala,” Ellie said meekly.

But, none of that mattered, because they were going to the museum!

The museum they were going to was called the ~~Sim-~~ ~~Simth-~~ Smithsonian **.** It was a museum, but somehow also eighteen museums? They were on different things, but they were all called Smithsonian for some reason. Samuel said that eleven of them were all connected underground by a bunch of tunnels and storage rooms, but that seemed unlikely and Ellie privately thought that maybe he was teasing her.

It took them _forever_ in the car to get to the Mall (which was called the Mall, even though there was no shopping). They drove past the Treasury Building, where Lala used to work before they were born, and Lala sighed. Daddy squeezed his hand, and Lala looked at him and smiled.

Then, Samuel dropped them off. “Can we get a snow cone?” JJ asked, looking at the food vendors. It was a good question, especially once Daddy answered _yes_ , and the kids cheered.

Ellie got grape (her favorite flavor, because it was purple) and JJ got cherry, and Georgie got blue raspberry.

Then they were walking, and even if it didn’t have any shopping, the Mall was a nice place.

They went to the Castle first, and wasn’t that cool? A real-life castle in Washington DC! It was made of red bricks, which made JJ smile, because red was his favorite color. The castle was great, even if Lala did make them go to the bathroom before they left, and Daddy wouldn’t let them go to the gift shop.

But it was okay, because there was a carousel outside! And it had a horse with a purple blanket! Ellie chose that one, of course, then JJ got one with a red saddle and face-thing. Going around was so much fun, she just had to giggle! Georgie was too much of a baby to ride a horse, so he sat in the carriage with Lala and Daddy. Georgie liked the carriage because it was blue, which was kind-of his favorite color, although not really because his favorite color changed all the time because he was a baby. But it was blue right then. Maria didn’t want to ride, so she watched them go around from the ground.

Then they saw the Washington Monument, although they didn’t go in it, and then they saw Uncle George’s old house. Uncle George had lived there a long time, but then he had to leave so that Mr. Adams could move in. Daddy and Lala said that they had to be respectful of Mr. Adams, even though Ellie would hear them talking about him when they didn’t think anyone could hear, and they said plenty of disrespectful things! But they were grownups so they could say whatever they wanted.

Then a funny thing happened – not funny like to make her giggle again, but funny like it was weird. Daddy and Lala were looking at Uncle George’s old house, and then they were looking at each other, and then they looked back at the house. Sometimes this thing happens, where Daddy and Lala look at each other, and they just know what the other one is thinking. Ellie wished that she could do that, too, but it was a grownup thing. But then they ruined it by talking together! Ellie couldn't hear all that they said, except it sounded like they may have said something about a Primary? But that didn't sound right. She decided that they must be confused.

Then they went to the American History Museum, which was boring even if it did have stuff in it about Daddy’s ancestor who was also named Thomas and Uncle George’s ancestor who was also named George. It was funny seeing the paintings of not-Daddy and not-Uncle-George wearing silly clothes and standing around looking so stiff.

Then they went to the Natural History Museum! It was Ellie's favorite part of the ~~Simth-~~ Smithsonian because it was almost like a zoo! First, though, they had lunch in the cafeteria. Ellie got a pepperoni pizza, because that was her favorite junk food. JJ got cheese pizza and french fries, and shared it with Georgie. JJ didn't eat as much because he was an omega, and Georgie didn't eat as much because he was a baby, so they shared sometimes. It didn't matter, though, because Daddy said that they could get dessert! And they had dirt cupcakes!

Daddy got a barbecue sandwich and macaroni and cheese, Lala got a barbecue sandwich and green beans, and Maria got a turkey sandwich and french fries. Maria got a chocolate chip cookie, and Lala got a carrot cupcake; but when he was deciding what to get, Ellie saw Daddy come up behind him and mutter something in his ear about not needing any dessert to make him sweet, then kissed his neck, and Lala chittered really low right there in public. Then Daddy saw that Ellie was watching and suddenly looked a little embarrassed. Ellie was embarrassed, too, but more because chittering in public was Bad Manners, and Daddy shouldn't have made Lala do it. But, then, again, Teresa at school had parents who were going through a divorce, and she told Ellie one time that they were always yelling at each other, even in public; and Ellie thought that having a mother that chittered in public was loads better than one that yelled at his mate in public. Even if that mother responded by turning around and whacking Daddy in the stomach. Daddy pretended to be mad, but it was just pretend. They did that, sometimes, pretended to be mad at each other or fight; but Ellie could smell how amused they were, and knew that the fighting was just a game that they played. One time, Lala even told Daddy that he hated him, and Daddy had actually laughed.

They all went through the line with their lunches to pay. Daddy wasn't laughing when he saw how much money it cost.

Then they all went and got a table in the cafeteria. JJ sat right across from her and made faces at her when the grownups weren't looking. She pretended to ignore him while she was really looking at her plate for something to throw at him. Somehow Lala knew what she was doing, however, because he laid a hand on her shoulder. She decided to ignore JJ for real after that.

Then they went to the museum! And the first thing that they did was go through the Hall of Mammals! And the Hall of Mammals was Ellie's favorite part! It was so exciting, because the first thing you saw what a tiger jumping out at you! JJ saw the tiger, and immediately dug into his bag for his sketchbook. Tigers were his favorite animal, and he liked to draw, so he carried around a sketchbook like real artists did. He started drawing the tiger, just the way that it was posed, jumping down off the wall.

And there were so many other animals, too. There was a bunch of lionesses attacking a water buffalo, and a leopard with a gazelle up a tree while a hyena waited below. There was a giraffe bending way way way down to drink water, and another one stretching way way way up to eat leaves from a branch. There was a gigantic termite mound with an aardvark clawing at its base. And that was just in Africa! Then you went back and saw kangaroos hopping around in Australia while a koala watched from a tree, and a platypus in its burrow, and a dingo, and an echidna! In South America there were monkeys and sloths and anteaters and something called a tapir? In The Frozen North there was a lynx chasing a hare, a reindeer, an arctic fox looking adorable all snuggled up in its burrow, and a ginormous grizzly bear standing on its hind legs! It was bigger than Daddy! In North America there was a bunch of prairie dogs in their holes, and a huge buffalo (which was really called a bison because it wasn't a buffalo at all, or something like that), and a pronghorn antelope, and an adorable little grasshopper mouse. There was a beaver den, and you could see the beaver swimming under the water, and there was a wolf on top trying to get in! There was a flying squirrel and chipmunks and a bobcat jumping up to get a bird! There was a black bear, like the ones they sometimes saw at home at Monticello. There was a deer, which they _definitely_ saw all the time at Monticello, and this one was nursing her fawn. There was a gray fox and her baby, and an opossum, and a weasel hunting a mouse, and two raccoons. It was so cool!

But then there were no more mammals. So they went through the Human Origins section and saw a bunch of old almost-human skulls and stuff. It was a little embarrassing, though, because there were a bunch of sculptures of cavemen doing things, and one was playing with a little child, and the child wasn't wearing any clothes, and you could see his … thingie. She pointed that out to Maria, who went on a long rant about how the human body was beautiful and stuff like that until Ellie was sorry that she had said anything. The next statue, of a guy making fire, she didn't mention it to Maria this time.

Then they went to the Ocean Hall, and there was a life-sized statue of a whale! There was also a polar bear, which probably should have been in the Hall of Mammals, but Daddy just shrugged when she pointed that out to him. There was a real-life preserved giant squid! And a real-life Megalodon jaw!

And then they went into the Discovery Room! It had more animals up on the wall, but it also had fossils and bones and seashells and coral and stuff like that, and you could touch it all! You could even pick it up and hold it! Ellie liked the crocodile skull the best. But Georgie was getting bored, so they went back out to the Rotunda and through to something called Deep Time.

And there were more cavemen, which was silly. Weren't there enough cavemen at the other exhibit? But the cavemen were just at the beginning, so Ellie walked past them and started to see woolly mammoths and ground sloths and saber-toothed cats and something called an Irish elk and stuff like that. Daddy spent a lot of time looking at the mastodon, studying it. “I never realized they were so big,” he said. “This thing used to live here.”

Then they went through various other exhibits of dead things, and then they got to the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs … were dinosaurs. JJ liked them, but Ellie didn't much see the point. They were dead. You couldn't go out into the wild and see them, or watch them on TV; and if you could, then it was just guessing what they looked like. You couldn't go on safari (which Daddy promised they would do one day!) and watch a Stegaceratops or whatever living its life, because they were all dead. They lived, then they died, and now they were all dead. The End.

She knew how this would happen: they would go into a room full of bones. Those bones would look like they were from an animal just standing there, staring straight ahead. If the dinosaur was a carnivore, it would have its mouth open like it was roaring. And they would stand there and stare up at the bones of an animal that was all dead.

Instead, they walked in, and there was a skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex. She was holding down a Triceratops with its foot while she bit down into the Triceratops' head-neck-thing. Frill. That was the word for it. They were just bones, still dead, but Ellie had never seen something so violent in her six (and a half!) years.

“Did they really do that?” she asked a museum staff person.

The beta smiled down at her. “Oh, yes,” he said. “We've found many Triceratops frills with tooth marks from Tyrannosaur teeth gouged into the bone, and we've found Tyrannosaur bones with Triceratops horn marks scraped into them. And you wanna know something cool?”

Ellie could feel her eyes widen, and she knew it made her look like a baby, but she couldn't help it. She nodded.

“Some of those marks had started to heal. Meaning that the animal had _survived_ that battle, and gone on to live the rest of its life.”

Ellie looked back at the dinosaur display and thought about that. Thought about the Triceratops jumping up from under the Tyrannosaurus' foot, the way that she and JJ sometimes played. Thought about the Triceratops stabbing the Tyrannosaur with its huge spikes. Thought about the Tyrannosaur living through that, with huge holes in her leg, but still surviving and healing.

Then thought about how they could tell all this cool stuff from bones.

They went to the other parts of the museum, then, but Ellie was still thinking about those dinosaurs. They looked at the Hope Diamond, and mummies, and went through the Butterfly Pavilion. But, even though all of that was really cool, she couldn't stop thinking about those dinosaurs.

At the gift shop, when Daddy said they could get one thing, she chose a purple T. rex doll.

Then they went to the National Gallery of Art, which was just full of paintings and sculptures and stuff, and she held her doll (whom she had decided was an Alpha, like her, and female, and named Zoe, because that sounded like a really cool name) while looking around and deciding that getting upset at seeing the sculpture's wiener wasn't so big of a deal, after all, because there were a _lot_ of wieners in here. No one back then liked to wear clothes, she guessed. Then they went to the National Museum of the American Indian, which was _really_ cool, because it had a bunch of tapestries and pottery and outfits and stuff, from all over America, and they were all really interesting to look at. The building itself was really cool, too, all wavy like water.

Then they went to the Museum of Omega History, and walked around looking at stuff that omegas had contributed to society as well as paintings of omegas in cages and handcuffs and stuff, and Lala got really quiet.

After that, they went to the Air and Space Museum, and looked at airplanes and rockets and stuff about Amelia Earhart and the Wright Brothers and a plane called the Spirit of St. Louis and the moon landing and all. Daddy liked those, but kept looking back at Lala. But then everything got better, because the Air and Space Museum had an IMAX theater! And they were playing a movie about tigers! JJ got really excited, then, and Daddy decided that they'd all go watch the movie! All the kids sat beside each other, with Maria sitting by Georgie at one end and Ellie sitting beside Lala at the other end. There was a space between her and Lala, but she still saw, when the theater got dark, Daddy leaned over and started kissing Lala's neck again. Lala didn't chitter this time, but instead smiled back at Daddy, so Ellie decided that Daddy had done the right thing this time.

After the movie, they were all really tired. Lala, who must have liked the movie a lot because he smelled a lot happier now, laughed and reminded them that there were still a lot more museums to go to; but they all decided that it was time to leave. Daddy texted Samuel, and everyone walked to where he was going to pick them up.

They were going to spend the night at the townhouse tonight, so they went to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory on the way. Everyone was quiet while they ate, but it was a happy quiet, not an angry or sad quiet. Ellie sat in her chair and ate her mini corn dogs, holding Zoe on her lap, then decided something.

“I'm going to be a paleontologist when I grow up,” she told her family.

 

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I just want to say, if you have the option to go, the Smithsonian is awesome. It's definitely a great way to spend a few days, if you can. There's a museum on just about any subject you can think of, as well as a zoo. The best part? It's all free! Not a single museum, or the zoo, has an entry fee. And, yes, [there really is a castle](https://www.si.edu/museums/smithsonian-institution-building). [And a carousel](https://siarchives.si.edu/blog/favorite-smithsonian-carousel).
> 
> But while the museum is free, the food is not. All of the big museums have their own food service areas, and it's pretty typical amusement-park/museum pricing. I don't mind paying it, because it's all going back into the museum (which, again, doesn't have an entry fee); but for the more financially-minded in the audience, you may need to get lunch from one of the _many, many_ food vendors instead.
> 
> While we're on the subject: [the T. rex sculpture is real, too](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/health/the-making-of-a-trex/) \-- or, at least, it will be. The Deep Time exhibit opens in June 2019; but, since this fic takes place somewhere around 2024, I decided that putting the exhibit in the fic was a fair bet, lol.
> 
> One last note: [Thomas Jefferson was really, really into mastodons](https://www.vox.com/2015/4/13/8384167/thomas-jefferson-mastodons). It's one of the reasons he sent Lewis and Clarke out west -- to find a mastodon. Back then, extinction wasn't widely believed was possible (no way would God ever allow any of his creatures to just disappear), so he believed that they were still alive, somewhere. What's more, he was in a bit of a patriotism war with a French naturalist named Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. Buffon believed that the inferiority of the New World was reflected in the inferiority of the animals that were found there in comparison to the animals of the Old World. This didn't sit well with many of the Founding Fathers, including Jefferson. He was desperate to get his hands on an example of an American mastodon to prove that the majestic animals lived in the Americas, too. He didn't find any, living or dead, but did accidentally discover the ground sloth ( _Megalonyx jeffersonii_ ) in the process. Even if he thought it was a lion at first.
> 
> What did you think of the first fic told from Ellie's point of view?


End file.
